


is this salvation?

by ioucos



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: F/F, Lowercase, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, homura is really fucked up okay, i love her but. she needs help and hugs and like. Not Being In A World Of Magical Girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 13:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17829140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ioucos/pseuds/ioucos
Summary: “burn your biographies,rewrite your history.[i] wanted everything, wanted everything”





	is this salvation?

**Author's Note:**

> i dont know why i keep doing this to homura and the other girls. i love them so much but i cant stop making them Suffer

for all her life akemi homura had hoped for salvation

though she had gone to catholic schools for the majority of her life, she wasnt all too religious — nonetheless, with her condition, _in her shoes_ , how could one not hope for such a thing?

constrained by her own body, always a single illness away from being barred from the world for months

indeed how could she not desire it

but no prayers to any catholic god had ever saved her. so when a risky experimental surgery had left her stable enough to go to a middle school in the quaint city of mitakihara, she chalked it all down to coincidence, not fate

her opinion did not last, in two different ways.

first, utterly dejected, whispered about just beyond her range of hearing, the embodied form of the sad, incompetent, ill girl, it was clear to her that this was no positive change. sometimes an empty hospital bed and absent parents was better than _that_. all she had ever wanted was friends, a life — and that was far from what she had gotten here.

this was no coincidence! this — this was clearly no random happening. just another addendum to her sad, sorry life, devoid of friends or family or a warm home or love or _anything whatsoever_ that would make existing worth it —

so when the whispers of witches infected her mind as she walked back to her apartment, they were painfully at home there

all until she caught sight of Kaname Madoka and tomoe mami, lost in the labyrinth of despair

then, she knew. this was no coincidence. this was fate, a meeting of destiny.

introduced by the two smiling, bright girls to a storybook world of magic and wonder and justice, she at last felt some semblance of home in her heart. at last, people who would care about her!

tomoe mami was the perfect epitome of a motherly figure. calm, caring, and altogether capable — who wouldnt like her? but it was Madoka that she was drawn to nonetheless. Madoka, who took the most interest in her, Madoka who stayed with her during class, and offered to join her and tomoe for lunch — Madoka, who truly brought a light never-before-seen before into homura’s life.

she would do anything for Madoka. thats why, when the dread night of walpurgis came and went, and the pink-haired girl lay dead at her feet, despite all homura’s protestations to not go, not leave her and this perfect world behind, akemi homura made a wish — a deal, really, with a devil.

(perhaps not The devil.)

passed time burned away like a fading, forgotten dream, and suddenly homura was in her hospital bed again. she looked down at her hand, to the faintly glowing purple gem in her hands. then to the calendar.

it had worked. she was a magical girl. and she could still save Madoka. she had a purpose, a raison d’être, at last! it would be a grim task ahead, but there was _purpose_ in the wish that she had made.

 _“is this salvation?”_ she thought to herself.

 

* * *

dozens of tries and retries and increasingly-desperate attempts later, homura was utterly jaded. in this world of despair and nightmares and horror, there was no place for any happiness, any saving — all that was of any importance in the world was Madoka, and freeing her from this horrid cycle of homura’s own making.

that was all that mattered. Madoka.

but it was hard. years and years lost in time had left their mark. it was often difficult to keep the memories in order — whether she’d gone out shopping with _this_ Madoka to make her happy, or saved _that_ Madoka from candeloro or oktavia von seckendorff or ophelia or _walpurgis_ — unstoppable walpurgis

it all came down to walpurgis, in the end. by the end of her journey, homura was able to keep Madoka alive no matter which person turned into this or that witch, and no matter what external factors came into play. she’d mastered the chessboard, but she’d started with a disadvantage from the beginning — the opposition always had one extra piece. or perhaps she had one too little.

not once had Madoka survived the walpurgis night unharmed. to allow her to do so was homura’s singular desire. but she had spent her only wish getting this far, and she could not make the stars align again. it was just failure and failure and failure and failure and failure — and then Madokami.

she knew that if she gave up, it would all be over. not just for her, but for Madoka too. so when Kaname Madoka stood in the way of her impending annihilation and made that one final wish, homura didn’t know what to say — what to do, what to think, what to _anything_

caressed and comforted by the transcendent girl at the rewriting of the universe, homura thought that perhaps at last everything had all been worth it. Madoka saw all the timelines, all the efforts that homura had made — at last they could have their perfect ending together, their fairytale happily-ever-after. their freedom from all the laws and cycles of the world that kept them apart.

that was until homura was left alone yet again, the only thing she’d ever wanted snatched right out from her grasp in front of her, alone with nothing but red ribbons and memory that no one else had. and this time, Madoka would never come back. not until homura perished.

but perhaps it was okay. after all, Madoka had told her what she was now. she was the universe, all around homura, pervading her, always embracing her — the very air she breathed, that was Kaname Madoka. and it was homura’s job to uphold that brilliance and splendor and beauty when no one else remembered — to protect Madoka’s world and the people in it. she had a purpose. a love that would never die.

staring at the little drawn girl kaname tatsuya made in the sand, homura thought to herself, _“is this salvation?”_

 

* * *

the new world was much happier. after years of separation, she could at last come to know tomoe mami and sakura kyoko and miki sayaka, and they could come to be the friends that she had always wanted, back when she was nothing more than a small girl suffering from a weak heart and a lack of confidence. even if they would never know the memories that she knew, she could at last have a home and friends and a place to _be_ in life

like everything good in her life, this quickly went sour. the thought first bubbled up in her mind like thick, poisonous tar when she pulled the trigger on her own soul gem back in that dream. she liked the friends that she now had, but she loved Madoka more. first and foremost, she would protect Madoka. even if it meant destroying herself, even if it meant denying her own happiness once more

even if it meant destroying the universe.

those were the thoughts that crossed her mind in an instant as she grabbed hold of God Herself with her bare, unworthy hands, and tore the human girl known as Kaname Madoka back into being with a sickening crack throughout spacetime. she could hear mami and kyoko’s shouts of confusion and alarm just beyond the epicenter of her transcension, but akemi homura could no longer bring herself to care. all she had room in her withered, hardened heart for was Kaname Madoka, and she meant to keep it that way even if it meant the end of reality.

but it was no end. instead, homura was seated over the world itself, enthroned as the Devil, eternal manager of the paradise that she had formed with her own two hands

there were imperfections, of course. this was no sacred wish like Madoka’s — this was born of pure, unquenchable desire, of toxic, burning Love

(was it Love? or could homura just no longer bear to be at the mercy of others any longer — she didn’t truly know anymore, and it no longer mattered to her)

those imperfections made themselves quite clear. miki sayaka would always remember, the world was never quite stable, and there were always immutable signs of her own hand in the place’s making abound. but, the solutions were simple. have sayaka tailed for the slightest inkling of remembrance, make it so no one would ever believe her tales, cast glamours and illusions about like they were the cheap candy apples of homura’s new role as the maintainer of her world.

and then there was Madoka.

after that fateful first day, the girl never seemed to remember the past — the golden glint had at last faded, and homura could have breathed a sigh of relief, if not for the constant fear that it might return, and all this might be taken from her and that she would be again reduced to the impotent _nothing_ that she had always been —

these thoughts faded somewhat when she was with Madoka, however. with the girl’s dance and giggles and laughs and smiles when it was just the two of them, alone, homura could at last reside in the paradise she had created for the universe — a world without witches, without despair, and without separation

the gentle touch of the pink-haired girl’s lips could make all the things she had done worth it.

Madoka, she decided, was like a wide-eyed doe stumbling into the heart of darkness itself. but as long as she never pried into it, never tried to see the corruption at its core, then everything would be okay. everything would be alright. at last, homura could be happy, and everyone else could be too.

still, the nagging feeling that everything and everyone would fade away into thin air never left homura’s mind.

 _“is this salvation?”_ she asked herself.

 

* * *

nothing ever lasted. this much was clear.

the second she’d lost contact with sayaka’s observers, she knew that something was up. this had happened before. but, she could deal with it. she was the Devil of this world.

but when she came across sayaka hurriedly spewing a panic of words to Kaname Madoka, her love — her only love — homura knew that this time, she had arrived too late.

the only recourse was to draw her burning demonic bow as she saw the gold well up in Madoka’s perfect eyes, to let the wings and the dark dress to emerge once more as the glamours and illusions faded to nothing.

akemi homura had worked for over a decade to get her hands on a world like this, and she would not let it burn without a fight. she would have skewered sayaka in an instant, had Madoka not protected the girl.

though homura saw the grieved yet caring look in her love’s eyes, she knew they both knew what lay ahead.

burning streaks of light, wisps of energy, cackles of swarming familiars, arrows singing through the air — all they needed now was seven broken seals and seven trumpets. from the outset, however, akemi homura knew.

she knew, staring into those imperious gold eyes, that a corrupt desire like hers could never overcome the power of that pure wish. that web of dozens of wishes, culminating in divinity. all she had was Love — and she knew it was no Love to be proud of, if indeed it was so at all.

and so the Devil fell from heaven once again. this time more literally.

pinned to the ground by a myriad arrows piercing her wings, weaponry knocked firmly from her grasp, akemi homura watched as the peerless divinity Kaname Madoka descended upon her, flanked by her lieutenants, the upholders of that undefeatable Law of the Cycle.

Madoka’s smiled revealed a touch of sadness to homura. she shared it too. she was weary. both of them were.

“ah! at last, lucifer is cast into the lake of fire,” homura muttered mournfully, _sardonically_

Madoka hid a wince, but homura caught it. “I’m sorry it had to be like this,” the pink-haired goddess said.

“nothing ever had to be like _anything_ ,” homura said. “is this world really so awful, so horrid, that i must be torn from my preserver’s throne and carried off to heaven while you resume your eternal, ceaseless self-denying labor?”

Madoka frowned. “I could never live here knowing how this place has destroyed you, Homura-chan.”

“perhaps!” homura intoned. “but is there nothing that you ever could have done? the world is at our fingertips. there’s no need to settle for imperfection, is there?”

“I can’t,” Madoka gently said. homura knew this. her wish had constraints. homura’s desire did not, but it would never be as powerful as the pure compassion that had driven the easing of all magical girls’ sufferings

homura stared in a sad silence at her love. “i know.”

they stood there together, mami and sayaka and kyoko and nagisa all clearly seeming as if they knew they were intruding on something awfully private

“send me to my fate, then,” homura said. “‘end my sufferings’, if that’s what youll christen it.”

at last, Madoka smiled, smiled a real smile. she giggled. “Aw, Homura-chan! It’s nothing to get all down about! We’ll be together forever, and everyone will be okay! I’ll _always_ have some time to see you, even when I’m out saving all the magical girls in despair around the world!”

with every word homura knew her excitement and relief should have been growing and growing in proportion, but all she could feel was this screaming voice in her mind, begging her to know this was a trap, just another abandonment, an entrapment in the folds of heaven instead of earth this time. with every fiber of her being it told her that this could not be, that this future could never be

nothing she had ever done or said had ever made it so, and the graspings she’d made toward it had all led down their ruinous paths to this very moment.

a deep, sinking, drowning feeling filled homura’s every pore, eating away at her insides.

“you’re more merciful than the lord enthroned in heaven, i see,” homura whispered

Madoka reached up to her hair, and slowly pulled out the two red ribbons homura had set there at the start of this illusion. they pooled into her hand, and the girl’s pink hair flowed free. Madoka extended the hand holding them out

“Come with me?” madoka asked.

homura stared at the ribbons with dull eyes. this was it, huh. the apotheosis of all her struggles, the freedom from all the cycles. right before her, at last. and not a lifted finger on her part had brought it to her.

homura sighed, looking to madoka — to her love. the devil closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

she reached to the ribbons, to madoka’s hands.

and then, before any of the other five of them knew what was happening, she tore an arrow out from one of her own wings, an unintentional grunt of pain passing beyond her lips, and impaled herself right then and there.

the surprise and fear in everyone’s eyes was evident, but homura wasn’t looking at any of them. she was looking at kaname madoka. the love of her life, her raison d’être, the source of the only purpose she had ever found her wretched existence.

the shock, the _horror_ in madoka’s eyes was evident. homura quickly crumpled back down to the ground, and madoka swept forward, grabbing the devil up in her arms.

“Homura!” she screamed.

“all of my life was one mistake after the other, madoka,” she said. “one destruction upon another. i never had a chance to be with you. this was fate — to be unworthy to even be your _prisoner_ ,” homura spat, with a bit of blood as well.

the tears welling in madoka’s eyes didn’t surprise homura. the girl was always so caring, but she — she couldnt even bother to cry for _herself_ , as that drowning feeling got an unbreaking grip on her heart. homura caressed madoka’s face, bringing her close.

“it’s okay, my dear,” she said. “this is the end. at last.”

“For _you_!” madoka exclaimed.

homura smiled, feeling the blood pool up around her, and drew madoka into a deep kiss.

“for _now_ ,” she corrected. it was the reverse of every similar situation the two had ever been in. madoka only held her closer. homura let herself rest her head on madoka’s shoulder. she whispered into her love’s ear

“we’ll meet again. somehow, some way. i don’t know how. free of all this splendor and ornamentation. but we will. we’ll meet again. this is my salvation, Kaname Madoka.”

and then the goddess of the Law of the Cycle was holding nothing more than an empty corpse.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you... enjoyed??? i guess thats not quite the word to use, but. writing this really messed me up lmfao they all need hugs and to Not Be In This Hell World


End file.
